Howdy, this is Sigur from the future (June 13,2010) and due to the scope of this project log, I figured it would be a good idea to have an index so people wouldn't have to scan through all of these 70 pages

I too come from the future! (September 19, 2012) and I gave the index a bit of an update!

For my latest comission, I just got the Battle for Skull Pass box to paint for my local indy retailer's shop window/test games/explaining the game etc.

Within the next months (I assume that it will take me about two months to paint the miniatures from the box at max with having to manage other comissions, school, social life stuff, etc. too) i'll try to keep you guys updated including pictures and all. I know that this painting documentation's topic isn't the most exciting as I'm basically painting the minis "out-of-the-box". No conversions, nothing fancy, just plain old painting (the expected level is "pretty high TT standard" by the way). I still hope that you'll enjoy reading and commenting this log as much as I hope that it will encourage me to get the stuff painted faster as well as better.

Got the box and started getting the first gobbos out of their sprue. I'm not sure if I'll be able to to start removing the mold lines (I'm already dreading this part of assembly) tonight as it's weekend so I might just get pissed and sharp blades + gobbos + alcohol would just lead to even more obstacles for the painting.;)

McMullet

28-10-2006, 22:40

Howdy, I'm Sigur...

Hey there, welcome to Warseer!

I'll keep an eye on this... only one problem I can see so far (aside from the knives/alcohol/models issue): No picture of your desk. Just a little glimpse of part of it, including, as ever, the bits of the twin of my speaker system.

Good luck with those mould lines then. :)

sigur

28-10-2006, 22:54

Hey there, welcome to Warseer!

Thanks, I'll read the FAQ and enjoy my stay.

Weird...how did I know that you'd be the only one replying to this thread so far.:p

devolutionary

28-10-2006, 23:22

Hi ther Sigur! Wow, that's a big project! What colours are you going to paint them? I like painting, don't you? Colours are nice and pretty too. Can you say colour?

No, but seriously, what are the colour plans?

Lostanddamned

28-10-2006, 23:29

Best of luck on this..

Erestor

28-10-2006, 23:48

That's one wierd commission. Who wants this?

Best to avoid mixing sharp objects and alcohol, I have scars to prove it!

sigur

29-10-2006, 01:04

@devolutionary: At least the Gobbos will be painted in GW's colour scheme, About the Dwarfs I have a bit more liberty. I'm thinking of either going for the old blue-metal-scheme the box suggests or something green.

@Erestor:
...I just got the Battle for Skull Pass box to paint for my local indy retailer's shop window/test games/explaining the game etc.;)

Paulus

29-10-2006, 08:49

I'm painting the entire contents of BFSP myself at the moment, however I'm an extremely SLOW painter & have quite a lot of other things on at the mo so my time to spend painting is limited.

Completely agree about asembling & cleaning up all the mini's it's a daunting task as there's just so many of them!

Best of luck to you.

ExoCowboy

29-10-2006, 09:26

Good luck sigur, I will also be watching this (and kicking your butt to keep on painting). Remember to stay focused and post steadily pics of your progress to keep people supporting your task :cool:

I removed the mold lines on twenty-eight Night Goblins and glued them to their bases which was not exactly a rollercoaster of intellect, emotions and fun but at least it's done now.;) So this leaves me with twelve Gobbo archers yet to clean up, then the first sprue is done. I'll post an overview of the models in the box, set up a to-do list and work out a schedule for assembling them.

Things I noticed yet: The miniatures are not as bad as I thought judging from all these pictures on the internet. The 'Eavy Metal team's paintjobs kinda don't do justice to the miniatures I believe. I'm not into this supersmooth-looking painting style the GW is going for since the dawn of 7th edition. The Goblins seem to be in scale very nicely. I'm clearly looking forward to the new Goblin box. The troll still is terrible in my opinion though.

Another small thing I noticed is about the bases. The cavlary bases for the spider riders have sculpted terrain on them (very simple though) and the 20mm bases are molded differently to how they're done normally. Judging from the "flash", they aren't done in sprues but as single parts with the connection to the sprue at the middle of the top of the bases. Just a little, weird observation.

That's it for today I guess. Maybe I'll find the time to clean up those Gobbo archers too later tonight.

^_^

29-10-2006, 19:43

I'm very excited to see the final Goblins.

Some questions:

- are the shields already stuck onto the minis, or do you have to glue them?
- will you paint just the Goblins or the Dwarves too?
- could you please take a photo of the Spider Rider's bases?

I'll be watching this with interest, Sigur. I'd be well chuffed if I was considered good enough to do the window display models at my local GW (especially since my local is Warhammer World...)

tonight as it's weekend so I might just get pissed and sharp blades + gobbos + alcohol would just lead to even more obstacles for the painting.;)Well that's half the fun, right?

McMullet

29-10-2006, 21:08

Oh Sigur, you've set a foolish standard. I now fully expect to see MS Paint speech bubbles on every photograph you post. :D

That was a productive day, by the looks. Now, let's see if you can make the sucky troll look good...

sigur

29-10-2006, 23:57

Cheers, internet people!:)

@^_^: Yes, the shields are already stuck to the miniatures. They are entirely one-piece models. The Dwarfs will also be painted, I just started with the Gobbos to clean up because I wanted to get the more annoying job done first. Pictures of the spider rider bases will follow shortly; with next day's update at the latest.

@tehYorkiebarzorz: *bans*:p Well, I am chuffed indeed and I'll try to make them put a little sign next to the minis, saying who painted them (my vanity knows no end when it comes to miniature painting). Concerning the alcohol+blades thing, I really tried to remove some mold lines yesterday since I wasn't that drunk but got sleepy after a short while.

@McMullet: Indeed, this foolishishness is already planned to become the standard since, as I mentioned earlier, the whole project isn't that exciting in itself so I'm trying to spice things up a bit.

violenceha

30-10-2006, 02:26

I knew mine would just get in the way of my real hobby, cutting myself and superglueing my hands whilst drunk so i just put it straight in the cupboard, but shall be watching this thread with interest and look forward to the spicey bits!

After a long day, I finally got to post my update. In fact I had planned to have all miniatures cleaned up and assembled by now but a computer-connected incident thwarted my plans. I promised you to make up a to-do list so here we go:

It's good to know that I got the bigger part of the miniatures primed now. I'm a bit concerned about the spider riders though; last night I had a nightmare about them for no real reason. So let's see what the next day holds for me....

@^_^: As promised, here's (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/bases-1.jpg) a picture of the sculpted bases that come with the box.

devolutionary

31-10-2006, 01:27

Nice, quick work is always good to see. Nice giant ;)

^_^

31-10-2006, 08:29

@^_^: As promised, here's (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/bases-1.jpg) a picture of the sculpted bases that come with the box.

Thanks alot. :)

McMullet

31-10-2006, 10:10

Wow, that's some impressive progress! There really are a lot of models in that boz... :eek:

About that plastic giant though... I hear it's a fine model. And, since it's a dogs of war choice, you can take one with any army! There's no reason not to get one, or maybe even more than one!

I do like those bases though, they effectiveely save the trouble of adding sand AND flock, which is nice, since the sand usually ends up mostly covered anyway.

Erestor

31-10-2006, 10:32

@devolutionary: At least the Gobbos will be painted in GW's colour scheme, About the Dwarfs I have a bit more liberty. I'm thinking of either going for the old blue-metal-scheme the box suggests or something green.

Day 4:
This is just a tiny update since I didn't get done anything. Instead I got a bit too involved into an article about Orks in 40k and, well, it was Halloween so the night was pretty much out for doing work on the minis.The next update will be a bit more exciting, I promise.:o

Yorkiebar

01-11-2006, 12:27

Day 4:
This is just a tiny update since I didn't get done anything. Instead I got a bit too involved into an article about Orks in 40k and, well, it was Halloween so the night was pretty much out for doing work on the minis.The next update will be a bit more exciting, I promise.:oBooo!

And on a less serious note, I misread that as "the night was pretty much out for doing work on the missus". :D

Terrain pieces, markers, etc. - assembled, cleaned and primed - those were more than I thought really - this medicine hut, the dwarfen fence, a tied-up Slayer, two bad moon markers, two Troll skull markers, one "goblin hit by dwarfen cannonball"-marker.

So all that is left to do for the first phase is assembling the spider riders and priming them as well as the cannon and this little grudge wagon. Unfortunately, I ran out of black primer. Seeing all these miniatures, I'm realizing that this is quite a project and WAY bigger than any comission I've done before. I hope I'll find enough time between school and other duties to paint all this stuff in time. Well, that's it for today.

McMullet

01-11-2006, 23:59

If you can paint as fast as you can assemble, you should be fine.

It's really bringing it home to me how many odels there are in that box though... :eek:

Good luck all the same!

violenceha

02-11-2006, 00:25

Is that a better mousetrap i see in the background?

sigur

02-11-2006, 00:42

@McMullet: Indeed, this box contains 90 infantry miniatures, a warmachine + 3 crewmen, 4 characters, a monster (kinda) and this cute pony wagon along with markers and a bit of terrain. For the price it's really a bargain, even more than the 6th edition starter box I think. And no, of course I will NOT paint as fast as I assemble.:p

@violenceha: Uuuhm, no. All you see is a jar of break fluid, the top centimeter of a candle holder, a plastic cup for the metallics-water, the spiderriderbases-sprue, a stone, McMullet's subwoofer and a bit of my tasteless ashtray. No mousetraps whatsoever. I think I should really get a new background for my pictures though.:rolleyes:

Damokles

02-11-2006, 08:55

good luck sigur! you definately get more done than me! My project log has come to a halt after uni starting all over again so...
but after reading this I'm thinking about expanding my old night gobbo force with some of the new ones..

by the way, which indy retailer are you painting them for, I guess one in Vienna, probably the "Damage unlimited", are you?

sigur

02-11-2006, 09:38

Indeed the Damage Unlimited it is.;) The only reason for the fast proceeding of this project at this point is that I'm on holiday till Sunday. As soon as my courses start again, along with tests and all, things are getting a bit more crucial, that's why I'm trying to get much done now. As mentioned before, you get incredibly much for your money with this box. Just the gobbo miniatures would cost more than double of what you pay for the box and the quality of the gobbo miniatures (horde army anyway) isn't too bad really.

violenceha

02-11-2006, 11:22

well then you're certainly no Macgyver!
What colour will you be painting your troll?

Pertinax

02-11-2006, 11:26

I've done a set as a commission as well. I took three weeks over it. But that was whilst I was on holiday for two. When we stopped off for a break on the long drives for about an hour, I would get out the paint and do a handful more goblins.

Three weeks. From boxed to sent off.

Good luck! I bet you will never want to see another dwarf again! ;)

sigur

02-11-2006, 22:24

Day 6:

Again, a not-so-productive day. I just cut a bit around on the Spider Riders, the spiders are still mostly covered in mold lines. But I think I can start painting a bit this night as I still got no new Chaos Black Spray.

@violenceha: Please, don't remind me of that guy.:rolleyes: Classic GW stone troll scheme adapted to fit the new troll I guess. Maybe a bit more greyish because the Warhammer world is dark, gritty, gothic and grim.:p

@Pert: I'll never get this painted within three weeks I'm afraid. First I need to find a good painting plan I guess which will take a few days itself.

skavenguy13

03-11-2006, 15:41

Took me about 1 week per army to remove mould lines, you go faster than me! :eek:

Did you decide how much time you're wishing to spend on each mini?

And what will you do about half of the spiders' side (the plain ones)? Will you model some detail on them, or let them as they are?

Pertinax

03-11-2006, 18:59

What I did on the spiders to cut time was to paint them black with some details, and then gloss varnish them. They ended up looking just evil.

violenceha

03-11-2006, 23:27

Everyone's got it in for Macgyver ever since he was banned from all GW events for using non GW bitz in his conversions. I hear he's teamed up with Mr T and they've developed the ultimate foo' pitying weapons of mass destruction, but that's not for here.
Any pics of your spiders Pert? Perhaps there could accidently be some hot gamers moms in the background?

Bloodthirster90

04-11-2006, 00:36

i started my BFSP and no-one really cared...:(
anyways, really quick progress there sigur. Keep it up. A little thought you may/may not find useful. The goblin spider riders (the actual riders) have spears, as I'm sure you know. What I want to say is, by no means, should you sit on a full squad of 10 of them, all with their spears pointing upwards. I found out the hard way...*rubs rear end*

violenceha

04-11-2006, 02:40

i started my BFSP and no-one really cared...:(
anyways, really quick progress there sigur. Keep it up. A little thought you may/may not find useful. The goblin spider riders (the actual riders) have spears, as I'm sure you know. What I want to say is, by no means, should you sit on a full squad of 10 of them, all with their spears pointing upwards. I found out the hard way...*rubs rear end*
well if you'd let us know you planned on sitting on them i'm sure everyone would have been glued to their screens!

dragonlady

04-11-2006, 03:23

Question: your choice of primers: Black for Gobbos and white for dwarfs?

Is there a method to your madness? IE, why did you choose different primers?

DirtJumper

04-11-2006, 15:33

Probrably because he plans on doing the gobbos in darker colors (they are mostly black) and the dwarfs in lighter colors. Therefore, he just chose the primer that would be best for each army.

sigur

04-11-2006, 16:10

Exactly. Actually, I didn't use just white primer for the Dwarfs, I applied a layer of black primer first, then put the Stunties onto the bases and then I applied a bit of white primer in an steep angle.

I like to do that with many miniatures these days since it makes painting brighter colours much easier. Using this technique on Night Goblins would be stupid though since their robes are black anyway.

sigur

20-11-2006, 20:28

Day 24:

I'm back. In the past few weeks, I was quite busy with other stuff as well as I was a bit lazy, I have to admit so I can't present you much apart from a few test miniatures. I apologize for the sub-standard quality of the photos, I tried out a new lamp setup which seems to need a bit of optimization and I set up the camera too close to the miniatures. For the next few pictures, I'll try to

A bunch of Night Goblins:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/testgobbos2.jpg

Further pictures can be found here (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/?sc=1&addtype=local), in the BfSP-folder of my photobucket account.

That's it for now, guys. More Updates will follow soon, I promise.;)

Voronwe[MQ]

20-11-2006, 21:05

The dwarfs of BfSP are relatively 'terrible', but not so the goblins. Very decent paint job.

sigur

20-11-2006, 21:52

I actually quite enjoyed painting the Dwarf. You get to work with all these bright, noble colours, you have these clear lines and such. But I have to agree; the Dwarfs don't look too good. Another problem is that they just don't look like the other GW Dwarfs. Anyway, I think that you can include the miners into your Dwarf army without trouble. They aren't that bad.

Pertinax

20-11-2006, 22:18

Very nice.

I've just taken a commission to doa BFSP by the end of Jan. SHould be a diddle.

sigur

20-11-2006, 22:36

Hehe, have fun then. I just put the first layer of drybrushing on 30 Night Gobbo robes. I'm really looking forward to my next comission though: a mounted Lord of Nurgle converted to hold a coffeepot instead of the scythe. This will be a very welcome change from this rather uncreative painting of 100+ miniatures.;)

Damokles

21-11-2006, 19:14

nice seeing you back in painting action. been very lazy myself in terms of painting lately...

sigur

26-11-2006, 21:44

Day 30:

One month has passed and I'm only posting a minor update. Basically, I did a bit of work on 30 more gobbos (two "layers" of drybrushing on the robes) as well as I've got about 60% (they still needblacklining, their beards and the golden parts painted as well as a few finishing touch-ups) of the first dwarf clan warriors done, let's see what I can finish this night.

sigur

15-01-2007, 06:47

Day XX: - Update time!

Yes, it is I. Still painting these 100+ miniatures from the BFSP box, still not done yet but I proceeded in the christmas holidays. Got not much time these days and I don't think that I need to explain much. Anyway, on to the piccies:

So, that's it for now.;) I'm in a hurry right now so I'll maybe add something later. Let's see.

-Mysterious

15-01-2007, 07:11

Hi Sigur,
I must say you paint to a pretty high standard. Also your pictures really portray as too how much you get in that box, you have almost tempted me too buy one, but I already have too many things on my plate.

Well I wish you good luck, and from what I have read so far I believe you will make your deadline.

McMullet

15-01-2007, 10:58

Sigur, I am most impressed. This work is of a very high standard, especially considering the sheer quantity of it.

Good luck, keep up the good work! :)

Paulus

15-01-2007, 12:19

Nice work Sigur, I thought this had fell by the wayside much like my BFSP set.

Glad to see you are persevering with it, keep up the good work!

Voronwe[MQ]

15-01-2007, 12:30

HIgh standard indeed. Yes, the miners look good, and was one of the main reason I bought it (amongst others).

Voronwe

sigur

15-01-2007, 13:44

Thanks for all the positive response. I hope to find enough time to paint as these days are quite stressfull (end of semester and all).

@-Mysterius: I have a deadline?:eek: This box really is quite a bargain, but only if you play one of those two armies of course. I also contains quite a bit of terrain and objective markers (apart from the templates, rulebook, etc of course). Still, if people are asking the old question wether they should get the rulebook or BfSP, I'd still tell them to get the rulebook. If you're afraid of getting too eager to buy this box, just think of 60 quasi-singlepose Night Goblins to paint.:p

@Paulus:The slayers were the most fun to paint yet. Apart from that, I'm dreading the 20 Gobbos I still have to paint (characters/Troll/warmachines are much more fun of course) and of course all the basing afterwards. But yes, I'm preserving it, being in the state of love/hate at the moment, entering the "pure hate" phase in about 2 months at the latest.;)

^_^

15-01-2007, 14:19

very good standard, nice smooth painting. *thumbs up*

Paulus

15-01-2007, 14:22

I got to that exact same point with the Night Gobbo's Sigur.

The entire contents of the box set is staring at me unpainted from a shelf as we speak with the exception of 16 spearmen & the warboss. I have 4 left to finish in the unit & have got to get myself to do them.

My plan was to alternate between Goblin & Dwarf units, rewarding myself with a character/war machine/Troll to paint between each.

I allowed myself to be dragged into starting my Lizardmen army though - It's good to see that you are clearly more patient thant I am, lol!

schoolcormorant

15-01-2007, 14:36

woah,
they are all excellent, very very well painted and so many! i love the goblin skin it's really good.

nice work Sigur
SC

The Wandering Ancient

15-01-2007, 19:27

Very nice work here Sigur. I especially like the blues on the dwarves, there's something about it that seems pleasing to the eyes. The Goblins look nice too. Keep it up Sigur, there's still a fair few models left to paint. :p

sigur

15-01-2007, 21:47

@Paulus:

My plan was to alternate between Goblin & Dwarf units, rewarding myself with a character/war machine/Troll to paint between each.

Yeah, I had planned that too, but you know how these things work out: In the end you just do what you're currently in the mood for and in my case, that's the Dwarfs most of the time. They have cleaner lines, brighter colours, fleshy skin, sharp details and such. You know, things that are fun to paint. Highlighting lots of black robes just isn't.

@schoolcormorant: Thanks. I afraid that the gobbo skin came out a bit too dark.

@The Wandering Ancient: Thanks, how could I forget about the minis I still have to paint.:p ;)

athamas

15-01-2007, 22:53

they look great, i take it for the gobbos yu used several very dark layers of grey dry brushed on, and im looking to emulate that...

im kinda not looking forward to the 200 of these i have to paint...
but before that i have to remove all the mould lines:(

sigur

15-01-2007, 23:13

You're right. A few layers of very light drybrushs with dark greys, followed by a drybrush/some classic highlighting (layering) with a brighter grey and a black wash to finish it. I also painted some pure chaos black into a few recesses and deeper areas later on after I noticed that the black wash made the robes look quite grey overall. Turn it into a project log, I suggest an update it every month or so.;)

Having to paint 200+ Gobbos.....not a very pleasant prospect.
Having to remove the mold lines from 200+ Gobbos PLUS the certainity that you have to paint them afterwards.....that's how I imagine purgatory.:D

athamas

16-01-2007, 00:23

yeah well.. im stupid like that....

what did you do for the red?

several layers of blood red, or did you build it up?

sigur

16-01-2007, 13:59

The red was a bit tricky. Blood Red just tends not to work very well, at least as a highlight over wider areas because it always looks chalky in the end.

"What, an update before the next three months have passed?!" I hear you ask. Yes, update time. Why? Because I say so. And because I don't want to start the upcoming, stressful week yet so I took some pictures of the pieces I'm currently working on.

Anyway, since I felt a bit uninspired at the beginning of this week, I started working on terrain (Grudge Wagon, Fancy Dwarfy Fence, Dwarfs Cannon).

All in one (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/terraingroup.jpg)

They are all still WIP, especially the Grudgewagon, but the cannon is about finished. Still, I have a small problem with it: It looks flat. So if you have any suggestions of how to beef it up a bit, please let me know.

This weekend, I started working on a test mini for the Forest Goblin Spider Riders(tm). It's also still WIP, but I'd like to hear what you think about it so far (especially the spider's scheme):

On the other spiders, I'll also use red and blue instead of yellow but the main parts will stay black.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to similarly positive replies as I got for the last update.

Paulus

22-01-2007, 00:40

This is all coming along nicely Sigur, I'm really liking the Spider Rider's.

McMullet

22-01-2007, 12:00

Good work! For the cannon, I'd try picking out some parts in another metal colour (Bronze, copper, or a lighter silver) to show the firing mechanism, rivets and suchlike are made from different materials to the barrel of the cannon. The blue on the cannon looks particularly nice I thought. :)

The yellow bits on the spider look excellent, except for the face. That looks a bit random, so I'd keep it in black, but leave the joints in yellow. It's fairly subtle but really gives the model some character.

Your stuff looks great btw, S. I've always used pure goblin green for the base-colour of night goblin-skin and worked that up. For orcs I mixed a bit of chaos black with goblin green to give them the darker look.

Dr Death

22-01-2007, 13:35

Very proffessional looking models Sigur, not remarkable in their individual state but an impressive standard to keep up across the board. Very well done.

Dr Death

sigur

01-02-2007, 22:40

Day XX+X:

Hey-heey!

This is not an update, I tricked you. Not only because many views in my pretty lazy painting log will make me a cooler person but also to show you that I'm not that lazy: I put together some very very basic terrain (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Terrain/terrain1.jpg)the last days. Someone in our group just has to make some terrain so me and two friends sat down to create some after the last gaming session when we had enough players for 3 tables for the first time but lacking in terrain. Also, I was hoping that it would be good for my painting motivation.

Anyway, since my last update I added some more coppery and golden details on the cannon as suggested and I'm considering finished. The Grudgewagon is also coming along nicely; yet I also started painting the last batch of Night Goblins with spears and stumbled across a little problem: I ran out of DA Green for the base colour for Goblin skin. My local indy store was out of DA Green so I went for the Vallejo Game Colour equivalent, realizing that it's incredibly glossy when dried (yes, I shook the paintpot like a maniac). So this is putting me off painting the gobbos' skin for now. I'll considered Badgobbla's suggestion to use Goblin Green only as a base.

@Dr.Death: Thanks. I might go for individually remarkable Night Goblins the next time but for this comission this is enough I guess. ;)

schoolcormorant

01-02-2007, 22:55

i see the paint rack in the background! :D

i want to see some more of you're stuff Sigur. the terrain looks great man.

SC

sigur

01-02-2007, 23:04

Thankee, kind sir.;) And as I'm a vain ape, here are some more pictures of older terrain I did:

hill (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Terrain/hills4.jpg)
a forest (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/WIP/forest6.jpg)
another one of the same forest, with miniatures for size comparison (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/WIP/forest3.jpg)

Can't find any more pictures...I did another piece of forest back then and another hill, fairly similar to the one in the picture above. I lose those tall fir trees I'm using because they were a real bargain: 8-10 of those for 15€ at a gaming store if I remember correctly. Forests are quite easy to make, they add much to a table and you can use them for 40k and WHFB alike. You can never have too much basic terrain you can use for battles between all kinds of armies.

sigur

25-02-2007, 20:21

"Inspired" by some Painting Logs I've been reading today, I'll give you a tiny update here:

Day XXX+XX:

I'll admit it: I've been lazy. Last week, I didn't touch a paintbrush and the week before, I was on skiing holiday but today I started painting again. So I painted a few more details on the Grudgewagon and started painting the Troll who is about 70% finished now, all he needs now is the finishing of the loincloth, the "jewelery" he's wearing and maybe I'll put some more efford into the stone he's holding. Have I mentioned that I'm not happy about this new troll miniature GW did? On my search for source material, I stumbled across this pretty simple, yet quite okay damage limitation (http://www.coolminiornot.com/144475). At least the guy got a nose.:mad:

Anyway, I've run out of Chaos Black and DA Green (I just refuse to do any more brushstroke with this weird Vallejo Game Colour Dark Green) which limits me in my proceedings.

Since I don't have access to the digicam now, I'll give you an updated version of my to-do list:

Looking at this list, the situation is looking dim. I'm having these miniatures for 4 months minus three days now and that's all I got done till now. Damn. Anyway, just in case you want to klick a link: BfSP photobucket folder (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/?sc=1&addtype=local). There are more links to klick around the internet. If you manage to klick them all, I promise to buy you a BfSP box and paint every miniature to GD-level.

Well, that's it for now. Happy painting guys and never forget: This painting log might seem to be dead but it isn't (quite).

McMullet

26-02-2007, 10:30

I'm not sure that troll is much of an improvement...

Looks like you're doing OK from that list though, I didn't realise you were so far along with the Gobboes.

By the way, today I clicked every link on the interweb. I'll PM you my address to send my BfSP box to.

sigur

26-02-2007, 13:45

Come on, at least he's got a nose and a proper second ear!:p I know that one of the most important and influential GW miniatures (Stone Troll) is about to fade away, but replacing it with something that looks like a LotR troll who got hit in the face by a cannonball is just perverse.

By the way, today I clicked every link on the interweb.

pix.plz.

Angel Robertson

26-02-2007, 14:57

Love the cannon! How did you do the blue runes? They really stand out!

As you can see, he needs the Jewelery done and the rock-like things on his back and the loincloth might need a bit more definition.

And a few WIPs:
Grudgewagon:
Grudgewagon1 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/wagon4.jpg)
Grudgewagon2 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/wagon3.jpg)

The current state of the Thunderers (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/thunderers2.jpg)

And the Fence. It's basically done, of course the base will receive further attention as soon as I'm basing the whole lot:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/fence2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/fence1.jpg

@Angel Robertson: Thanks. I used a White base (I learned to really appreciate white priming/basing within the past year) followed by a layer of Enchanted Blue and a few layers of Highlights with different mixes of Enchanted Blue/Ice Blue and a few different mixes of Ice Blue or Enchanted Blue and White to finish it off. Thanks for your comments guys!

P.S.: Thanks for moving this to Fantasy Logs.

Paulus

27-02-2007, 07:58

Great progess Sigur, I'm glad to see your persevering with this as whilst it's a big project it's also a worth while.

Everything's looking good - keep up the good work, your almost there!

sigur

28-02-2007, 00:10

Day XXX+XX+2:

It's exactly four months now that I'm working on this project so I think it's time for yet another small update. I think I've been quite productive today and I thought I'll share the progress with you.

The Troll is finished now. I painted the trophies/jewelery he's wearing, did a few touch-ups on the things on his back and did some work on his soles and finger-/toenails. The base details are also done.

The wheels still lack a bit of definition, hopefully I'll be able to do that tomorrow as well as the non-metallic parts of the Pony's bridle. Another good news is that I think I'm getting better with this digicam.

Not sure what I'll do after the Grudgewagon is done. If I happen to receive my good old DA Green soon enough, I'll give the rest of the Night Goblins a try, if not I'll finish off the Dwarven lot by finishing the Thunderers.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll appreciate any form of comments and critique.;)

P.S.: There are a few more images in my BfSP folder on Photobucket (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/). Have a look if you like.

Paulus

28-02-2007, 00:20

Like the Troll a lot Sigur, were you influence by this one (http://coolminiornot.com/index/whatm/GW/id/140222) as I have been?

How did you go about painting the Dwarf statue, as I want to do mine in a similar fashion?

sigur

28-02-2007, 15:46

Thanks for yet another fast comment, Paulus.;)

While I'm painting a miniature, I always try to get as many source material/"inspiration" as I can (because I'm a lazy git and like surfing the interweb instead of painting :p ). In short, yes, this guy also was one of the pictures I had a look at. Someone really paid 56$ for this one. Incredible. I mean, the paintjob is very nice indeed but 56$!?

Anyway, I drew even more inspiration from these guys (http://www.coolminiornot.com/126118) (the composition of the picture is also neat) and this one (http://www.coolminiornot.com/144475) I posted earlier.

The dwarven statue is done pretty straightforward: Basecoat of Vallejo Dark Bluegrey followed by several drybrushes (Dark Bluegrey-Codex Grey, Codex Grey, Codex Grey-DW Grey, ...) and a very dark-grey wash after the first drybrush because I felt the basecoat looked too bright.

Paulus

28-02-2007, 17:53

Thanks for yet another fast comment, Paulus.;)

While I'm painting a miniature, I always try to get as many source material/"inspiration" as I can (because I'm a lazy git and like surfing the interweb instead of painting :p ). In short, yes, this guy also was one of the pictures I had a look at. Someone really paid 56$ for this one. Incredible. I mean, the paintjob is very nice indeed but 56$!?

Anyway, I drew even more inspiration from these guys (http://www.coolminiornot.com/126118) (the composition of the picture is also neat) and this one (http://www.coolminiornot.com/144475) I posted earlier.

The dwarven statue is done pretty straightforward: Basecoat of Vallejo Dark Bluegrey followed by several drybrushes (Dark Bluegrey-Codex Grey, Codex Grey, Codex Grey-DW Grey, ...) and a very dark-grey wash after the first drybrush because I felt the basecoat looked too bright.

I too am a lazy git that surf's the internet or watches TV instead of painting, thats how I make such quick responses :D

$56 - That's crazy, it's insanely detailed but that's crazy.

Can see why those other ones have inspired you though too as they're also really nice looking ones.

Thanks for the info on how you painted the Dwarven statue, I'll be following that once I get onto mine - 4 more Gobbo spear men to do first though!

sigur

01-03-2007, 00:29

Quick update: The Grudgewagon is about done; all that is left to paint is the Pony's mane and tail. Pics will follow tomorrow.

sigur

03-03-2007, 01:05

Another quick update: I finished the Grudgewagon yesterday, did the blacklining on the Thunderers and started painting the golden rivets.

Off-topic-wise, I just had the first game of WHFB (Goblins & Beastmen vs. Dark Elves [me] & Skaven, Warbands rules, 400pts each player) in about three months; second game under 7th edition rules - and I won.;) Of course it's not due to my tactical abilities or my list but more due to the luck, list and abilities of my team mate.

Anyway, I'll try to get quite some painting done this weekend, so expect an update on Sunday night. Now that I finally have all the colours I need I can also think of finishing the Night Goblins.:p

sigur

05-03-2007, 01:05

Day XXX+XX+X:

Okay, this is the first real update, I just hope Cpt.Bown, Wintermute or someone else won't crucify me for this triple post but that's not my fault entirely; it's not my fault that my fellow Warseerers are too lazy to post and comment in here.;)

Anyway, to the update: I tried to be really productive this weekend so I basically spent Saturday and Sunday painting and I was able to increase the Thunderers' percentage of being finished from 40% to 100% and the state of the last bunch of Night Goblins on foot also improved from "robes and spear shafts done" to "all but metallics and shield emblems done (as well as the banner and gong). Actually, I had planned to finish both regiments but regarding the level I had set for those miniatures as well as my painting speed, this goal was quite utopic. Enough of that jibba-jabba now, on to the pictures.

Thunderers (What are they called in German anyway?):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/thunderers3small.jpg

I know, there isn't anything really exciting (I don't know how often you see Dwarven Handgunners, the ones in this box aren't that exciting really) or unusual (you all know what Goblins look like and they are even less interesting when only half done) in this update, still I hope you give me some comments on this stuff.

In fact, I need your help. I'm not sure if I'm eager to keep the banner's main colour black. First I thought of red of some kind but this is out due to the red wooden parts. I've been considering purple, do you think it would work? I have to say that I'm a bit clueless on the colours of the banner overall. And NO, I will not paint a checkers pattern onto the banner.:p Does anyone of you have a few suggestions for me?

Yay, the whole Dwarfs force is done! If it wasn't Monday, 2am, I should be celebrating. Looking at this list it seems like soonly, there will only be one more unit (Spider Riders) as well as two small characters to be done. Oh, and this shaman hut as well as those weird little objective markers, three if I remember correctly; two Goblin totem thingies (skulls on sticks) and the goblin that got hit by a cannonball (I'll give you pictures of this rather amusing piece of plastic as soon as I start painting it).

Last time I reported in to the contractor, I stated to expect to be finished by the end of March so I've even got a deadline now! Maybe I can even start pondering over the pricing. Anyway, eventhough there's not much time left, I'll do my best to stick to this plan and I'm hoping for your support. That's it for today, have a nice week guys and expect my next update soon.

P.S.: Darn, I forgot about taking pictures of the finished Grudtewagon. You'll get those with the next update which includes pictures.

schoolcormorant

05-03-2007, 01:15

the thunderers are really striking, i've sat and looked at them for a good couple of mins now :p
they really are nice, i envy you're neatness.

SC

sigur

05-03-2007, 01:25

the thunderers are really striking, i've sat and looked at them for a good couple of mins now :p
they really are nice, i envy you're neatness.

SC

Thanks for the quick response and the compliment, schoolcormorant.;) Actually, I finished those a bit hastey so there surely are a few .....boobs on them. (:wtf: I might consider using another online dictionary some time soon)

One thing I forgot to mention in the update post: Again, you can see some more images of these miniatures in my photobucket (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/).

edit: Just thought "Aw, whatever..." and took a few (partially weird) pictures of the finished Grudgewagon as well as a first picture of the thing I'll paint as soon as the currently WIP Goblins are done and put them into my BfSP folder. Feel free to have a look!

Re. the banner: Keep it black. Remember to keep that palette limited. ;)

I'm most impressed by the amount of work you've got done here, and at such a high quality. Looking forward to the next update!

mrtn

05-03-2007, 19:38

I agree with McMullet about keeping the banner black.

Nice thread, btw. :)

sigur

07-03-2007, 23:54

The Night Goblins units is almost done; there's still the command group to do though (skulls, banner, zig-zag pattern on the champion's hood, a bit of gold here and there, the skull emblem on the gong)

Thanks for the comments so far, I think I'll go for the black banner as suggested. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow. Seeya then.;)

Sling

08-03-2007, 14:41

The hanguners are great. First of all I thaught it was a drawing!

The boyz

08-03-2007, 16:44

Good job on those Thunderer's Sigur. The gold areas look very striking. I must make a start on my Dwarf's from the BfSP box set, sometime soon.

The Gobbo's are looking good too, I particularly like their flesh tones. As for the banner, I say leave it black or maybe paint it a dark blue.

sigur

08-03-2007, 19:36

Day XXX+XX+X+some:

The last batch of Goblin Warriors in Foot is done:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/gobbosfinished1klein.jpg

More (and bigger) pictures of those little greenies can be found in my Photobucket folder (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/).

As you can see, I went for the black banner as everyone suggested and I think it was the right descision. Thanks guys. I rushed the whole thing a bit towards the end, still I'm satisfied with the looks of this unit. Could be that I have overdone it a bit with the mushrooms on the banner bearer but I just enjoy painting mushrooms. Usually, I paint them as the very last thing on a miniature so I'm always a bit excited to finally be done when I paint them.:p

This leaves me with the Goblin Characters, a bit of Terrain and the Spider Riders. I'll try to give you the next update as soon as possible.

@Sling: A drawing? Heh, that's a new one.;)

@The boyz: Thanks, I really enjoyed painting those BfSP Dwarves (at least the first 10 or so :P)

So keep the comments coming, I'll keep the updates coming.

Paulus

08-03-2007, 19:39

WOW! I love your Night Goblin's Sigur.

kyussinchains

08-03-2007, 22:50

absolutely amazing, I mean, your highlighting is so smooth and subtle, the goblins look really clean and crisp, and the dwarfs are bold and bright.

How do you keep such a high standard? I love to paint my characters and make them really nice, but rank and file? I get sick of them after 5 models and just slap colour on them. How do you stay motivated to keep such a high standard (apart from being paid/bribed to do it!)?

I look forward to seeing more of your work!

sigur

08-03-2007, 23:33

Thanks for the compliments guys.

@kyussinchains: The highlighting isn't that smooth if you took a look at the miniatures more closely (= not on photos posted on the interweb).;) In fact, I guess it's a mix of vanity and some twisted version of lack of discipline and painting routine really. I'm painting a test mini, learn about all the details on it, starting to like it and think "this one would look nicer if I added another layer of this and that", I give it a try and it looks better. Of course, this means that I have to devote more time to a unit but I'm willing to sacrifice that for this little improvement of the result.

Of course, this also is a prestige project since it's gonna be on the shop window, fantasy expos and such so it better looks good. The mode of payment as it stands isn't too satisfying for me, so this isn't one of the main motivations. Another thing is that once I had painted one unit, the level for this project was set and I just couldn't go below that. Painting these little green fellows also is a nice way to relax and still having the feeling of doing something productive while in fact I should do more important things.

And finally, there's another motivation to make this project look good: I definitly wanted to make this store's version of the BfSP miniatures look better than the ones of the local GW store; one more thing to be proud (at least I'm feeling that way).

Technically, adding glazes/washes to the painting helped me much at "blending together" the single layers of shading/highlighting. I just can't get tired of mentioning how much adding dishwashing liquid to washes/inks helped me in that respect.

When painting my own minis, I also tend to get tired of rank and file troops after a time, but painting commissions has this different feel to it. It's much more like "I've got to do this now so I'm doing it.". It's not like I got these miniatures three weeks ago; they're sitting here, gathering dust for more than four months now so it's about time getting them done.;)

The boyz

09-03-2007, 11:31

Wow nice work on those Night Gobbo's, Sigur. The highlighting on their black robes, looks perfect. The banner looks great in black too, I like the multicoloured mushrooms on top as well.

McMullet

09-03-2007, 11:41

Great stuff sigur, the yellow and black on the models really gives a great contrast. :)

Crazy Harborc

10-03-2007, 02:59

Gotta join in with an atta boy from here too!!! I've got some of the gobbos from SP left to paint. I might even try to raise the painting level bar a couple of rungs. That said....DARN good paint jobs on those NGs:D

mrtn

10-03-2007, 10:00

The banner looks ace! :)

sigur

10-03-2007, 13:52

@The boyz: Thanks. I think the highlighting could be a bit more definite but highlighting black is always a bit tricky so I just went for a few runs of drybrushing, a wash and minimal final highlights. I'm glad that you like the multi-coloured mushrooms. They make the banna wava really stand out and draws the attention off the rather mediocre skull (I still have no standardized plan for painting skulls or bones :o ).

I started painting the shaman's hut but got annoyed with all these skulls to paint (see the comment on skulls above) so I switched to the Goblin characters who are coming along nicely. Hoping to get them finished tonight.

sigur

11-03-2007, 18:39

Sorry for the repeated double-post but I know that you folks like pictures so I took a few of the finished.... wait, this almost qualifies as another update!

I have no idea what's wrong but somehow my camera doesn't like me today. Maybe it's miffed because it has to work on Sunday or something; I don't know. The Gobbo chars might look a bit rushed....well, they are (especially the highlight on the black robes isn't too good) but I think they are well enough; time is tight.

Paulus

11-03-2007, 18:42

Awesome as usual Sigur. :D

Crazy Harborc

12-03-2007, 03:17

What he said. It shows just how great those minies do look with TLC/skillful painting.

Why I feel inspired.......I think I'll spray on a couple more layers of rustolium on my SP goodies:D Hey, that's what my paint jobs are looking like after seeing yours here.;)

Sureshot05

12-03-2007, 11:57

I love the shaman's hutt. What did you use for the base and highlight or is the camera "aiding" you a little here?

All cracking work, but I'm singling out the Squig's bloodshot eye for special attention. A very nice little touch. :)

Paulus

12-03-2007, 19:40

All cracking work, but I'm singling out the Squig's bloodshot eye for special attention. A very nice little touch. :)

I second that McMullet, makes mine look pants. :(

sigur

12-03-2007, 22:04

Thanks for the comments guys. Because of you, this log exceeded 100 posts! Time to celebrate. Free Mushroom beer and Squig curry goulash in the Shaman's hut!:p

@Sureshot05: While I have to admit that the picture makes the work look really good, it looks about the same in real life. The reds might be a bit less shiny but the brown parts are equal. I think looks especially smooth because my spray primer behaved weird and gave big parts of the hut a rather grainy texture (think GW rough coat) which seems to make the layers of brown blend together very well. Here's how I did it: Scorched Brown base, followed by several very thin layers of highlights: scorched brown/beastial brown mix (70/30), scorched brown/beastial brown mix (30/70), beastial brown, beastial brown/snakebite leather mix (60/40), beastial brown/snakebite leather mix (20/80), snakebite leather, snakebite leather/bleached bone mix (50/50) on very exposed areas like the "nose" and the "eyebrows".

@McMullet: Actually, I thought twice before adding the veins in the eye. It wasn't my idea entirely, just another thing I copied from the 'eavy metal guys who painted the BfSP minis. This booklet that comes with the box contains many pictures as well as very good ones of the characters included so it's rather easy to copy the way they painted them.

A little note on the Shaman: Originally, I intended to paint his eyes in different colours (yellow and purple/pink) to make him actually look like he's been nibbling too many Aaargh-mushrooms but the eyes are just too small to make such an effect visible.

Today, I was lazy so I just painted a layer of colour on the mushrooms on the Shaman's hut. As on the Gobbo banna wava's 'shrooms, I went for different, flashy colours and now the hut looks like it's been wrapped up in Christmas lighing which really distracts from the hut itself and the moon on top, so I'll go for single-coloured mushrooms (of different shades maybe).

Today, I set March, 31st as deadline for the whole thing but tests/exams are coming up so I'm not sure if I'll stick to that. I also thought of adding one or two Fanatics or even more minis (Squig herd, Kamikaze Katapult) from a Goblin lot I bought off ebay some months ago. I'll ask the contractor guy about that tomorrow.

Another thing that comes to my mind: What colour should I use for the bases? Is that Graveyard Earth the GW guys are using for the SP miniatures' bases?

Angel Robertson

13-03-2007, 16:19

Its been a while since i checked this thread and alot has been done since i did! Thank you for the rune advice! Hace you been primering all your models white then? OR just giving the runes a base of white?

AR

sigur

13-03-2007, 16:35

The Dwarfs have been primed in while, the gobbos, terrain and warmachines in black. The runes got a white base painted on themselves to give the blue over them a better look.

sigur

14-03-2007, 01:09

Another shameless thread-bumping and double-posting:

A few days after day XXX+XX+X+some:

For your personal enjoyment, gentlemen, the finished Shaman's Hut as well as the markers that come with the box:

I dreaded the highlighing and shading of the big moon on top of the hut and indeed it was some work. The highlights could be stronger but maybe you noticed that I'm not into over-the-top highlighting by now; I usually favor smooth blending.

Another thing you most probably have not noticed (till now) is that I suffer from a terrible lack in freehand painting. I think some shading would improve the result a bit but I didn't have the time to do so yet.

To finish this update, here's a special little friend of mine:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/gobbohit1.jpg
(Of course he doesn't come on a 28mm slotta base, I kind of blu-tacked the thing to the base to have better handling while painting it.)

Definitly the cutest set of toes ever. Overall, with this guy, 10 forest goblins and two Slayer miniatures, the BfSP box offers great joy if you happen to have a special interest in feet.*wink wink, nudge nudge*:cheese:

I just like the look of that. Anyway, this leaves me with 9 Giant Spiders plus Forest Goblin riders (and 110+ Bases to fo) and 17 days to finish this project. Seems like I'll be able to stick to the schedule. *knocks on wood*

schoolcormorant

14-03-2007, 01:45

good work Sigur, the hut is fantastic, this is shaping up nicely, i'd pull an all nighter to get the spiders finished (nudge) ;) anyway, i'm liking it all, and i have little interest in fantasy beyond ogres and you're stuff :)

and remember, full army shots ;)

SC

Saulot

14-03-2007, 03:57

I've been following your thread sigur, and I really like the crispness of your work! Best Skull Pass Army yet! :cool:

I like the way you didn't go over-the-top with the mushrooms. Keeping it predominantly red makes it more natural and it looks great!

And I second schoolcormorant, once you're done with the 9 Spider Riders and bases, full army shots please!!! :p

And that gobbo-casualty looks cute. :) Keep them coming, there is not much left to do (and after that, we want some nice pics of the whole force).

Paulus

14-03-2007, 09:14

Almost there Sigur - YOU CAN DO IT!!

You'll deserve every penny you get from this commision as the standard across all the models is excellent.

McMullet

14-03-2007, 12:11

Fantastic work Mr. Sigur! That hut looks so striking. The highlighting is just right. I'm looking forward to the Spider riders. :)

Sureshot05

14-03-2007, 15:34

Beautiful work Sigur. Really impressed with the entire set (and the speed which you paint at!). I'm now starting work on mine following a very similar scheme. Keep it up - who knows, maybe you can shave a few days off that time ;)

sigur

15-03-2007, 00:22

Thanks for commenting guys, you really help me keeping the motivation up.

@schoolcormorant:

i'd pull an all nighter to get the spiders finished (nudge)
Curses upon you for giving me ideas!:p It's been a while since my last paintathon, so if, it might happen the upcoming Friday if I find the time. On the topic of full army shots: There will be some in the end, no question.;) First I thought of returning the units one by one over some time but since I decided to do the basing all in one, I'll hand in the whole lot at once. Last but not least, I'm also keen on some shots of the whole bunch, as you are.

@Exo: Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I had a look at your redesigned homepage a few days ago and....well, it looks good so far (the stuff that is on yet).

TKitch

15-03-2007, 01:20

Where's the Bondage Dwarf? :D

Great work, all in all, but you're missing the best piece!

Paulus

15-03-2007, 01:22

Where's the Bondage Dwarf? :D

Great work, all in all, but you're missing the best piece!

Page 3, Post 47 - I am disturbed by the fact that I know what your refering to TKitch :(

sigur

16-03-2007, 01:08

Tiny update before I have to go to bed: A cold (possibly strengthened by a lack of sleep) accomapanied by a terrible headache as well as studying (well, I least I had planned to :eyebrows: I'm sure some of you share my grudge against accounting too.) kept me from doing much the past two days so the spider riders are still only primed.

About three hours ago, I started doing bases. Lacking the routine in that, I started off painting about 20 Bases brown without really knowing what I'm doing. When I realized that this wouldn't lead me anywhere, I dropped this plan and applied PVA glue, some rough sand and fine sand to the bases of 20 Gobbos, the Dwarven Warmachine crew, the Thunderers and the miners, the Spider rider bases (which are the only ones not glued to the miniatures yet and well as some terrain.

Drybrushing the texture on the bases will be quite a pain since they're all glued to the miniatures so I hope I won't mess up too much of the paintjob. After I got all the bases textured (as mentioned in the beginning of the log, the bases already got quite a texture molded on already, especially the Troll's and the Spider Rider ones but it's not defined enough), and maybe the odd pebble here and there, I'll paint and drybrush them, then add some static grass and that's it.

Concerning the Dwarven Characters - just because I just saw then being mentioned in an odd way:p - I applied some black ink to the Slayer's axes to give them a bit more shading so they're looking more decent now.

That's it for today. I'll keep you updated on the progress of this stuff but somehow I'm afraid that you'll have to wait a bit longer for updated pictures of the Spider Riders. Schoolcormorant's idea of the painting marathon for getting those finished is shaping in my mind...

schoolcormorant

16-03-2007, 01:25

my advice (lol - i just spent more money on GW stuff) is to use a new drybrush and go round the feet of them all very carfeully as the first order of business, then do all the rest :)

SC

Paulus

16-03-2007, 09:27

If you get any paint on the feet, dab a bit of PVA & put some static grass next to it to hide the marks.

That's what I do & works a charm.

Angel Robertson

16-03-2007, 09:38

Paulus thats cheating! BUt i love where your heads at! lol!

AR

Erestor

17-03-2007, 10:14

How nice of the mods to create a new sub category so you can find painting logs you posted in 4 months ago.

Nice work Sigur. This has been a marathon for you for sure. And still the spider riders to go? There is a lot of work there. I think the marathon idea is a good one. Get them done man! Crack on!

sigur

17-03-2007, 12:29

@Paulus: Thanks for the idea, still I'll try my best not to drybrush the minis with several layers of browns.;)

@Erestor: Thanks for dropping by and commenting. ;) If there will be a "paintathon", the only chance is the upcoming Friday.

I'll do my best to get everything done by the deadline I set (one week from now), but I'm not sure if I can really make it. Last night, I did some more work on the bases and realized that the first two goblin regiments look quite sub-par and they should get a few more touch-ups. It all looks like poo, people will hate it, OH MY GOD I'M DOOMED! Generally, due to this test on Tuesday, painting is delayed for a few days...

Updatewise, I can tell you that I've got all the bases sanded and rubbled now. about 25 also received a basecoat and I started experimenting with the colours of the bases but that was boring so I went straight on to preparing a slottabase to hold those spider riders while I'm painting them. Since I had the GS already at hands, I also sculpted a few mushrooms I'll put onto the bases as finishing touch.

Paulus

17-03-2007, 18:47

@Paulus: Thanks for the idea, still I'll try my best not to drybrush the minis with several layers of browns.;)

I would agree ther Sigur, it's always a good idea to at least try not to! ;)

Paulus thats cheating! BUt i love where your heads at! lol!

AR

Hee hee! As the old saying goes, it's only cheating if you get caught - wait a minute I just told you all, D'OH! :D

Angel Robertson

18-03-2007, 09:43

Any work been done on the spider riders!

@ Paulus, i will pretend i never read it then you can go back to thinking your not cheating as no one knows!! lol!

Ar

Huw_Dawson

18-03-2007, 10:39

I'm loving this plog Sigur. I'm planning to get the BfSP boxed set in around late spring, so you'd better have gotten the rest finished before then! :)

I also can't see why everyone hates the dwarves in this boxed set. A bit of TLC and a darn good paint job does wonders for any minature! :) (I also like the cannon funnily enough...)

I'm especially loving what you've done to the dwarves, but it's the gobbos we're all interested in now! Get at them Sigur! :D

- Huw

ekxw

19-03-2007, 01:53

sigur this is one of the best quik paint work i have ever seen, wish i could paint that good and that quick.

great job on the dwarf and in the goblins ones.

great work indeed

sigur

21-03-2007, 01:46

Hey guys, thanks for the replies!

Now that the test is over, I have some time to paint again. Tomorrow, I'll post some pictures of a test base I've done and I'll want your opinion on that, so make sure you have time to have a look, be focussed and sober.

The spider riders are still in their primed state, all I did today was applying a layer of brown to a few bases, but there are still many more to do.:rolleyes: I might underestimated those a bit (my latent contempt towards proper bases. You see so many over-done bases, pulling the attention off the actual miniature.)

Well, I still have 11 days to go.

@Huw_Dawson: Righto, I quite enjoyed painting the Dwarfs since I got to work with contrasting, quite bright colours. While I wouldn't go as far as liking the cannon much, those miniatures definitly are well done for a starter box, although they don't go too well with the current range of Dwarf miniatures. Excuse my ignorance, but what is "TLC"?

@ekxw: Thanks mate, all this practice definitly improved my painting speed I think. I'm quite positive on finishing more stuff faster than ever after this project.;)

Huw_Dawson

21-03-2007, 19:09

TLC stands for tender loving care - something that my current army - 40k's tyranids - doesn't have... (I just found the missing leg of one of my warriors in my bag! Woo! :D )

The thing I like about those dwarves is that they have so much character - they have a very unique, cheery feel to them that you don't normally get from that type of model.

Lookin gooooood I think, I think I do. I do wish to ask a small question about that poor, poor victim of Dwarf aggression who was so dastardly struck (from behind) by a WMD:eek: :( . Where's the blood, splattered blood, that is? Perhaps that will be in a later version?;)

sigur

24-03-2007, 01:37

Thanks Crazy Harborc. Since I'm trying to get a very....table-top-ey look on those miniatures, I didn't even consider adding blood. I like the comical aspect about this little fella rather than the gory one. Apart from that, I'm a lazy git and didn't want to invest too much time in this piece.:p

The bases of all the miniatures minus one unit of Goblins are done now. Here and there, I accidently touched the miniatures with the drybrushing brush but you hardly see it (only if you insist in checking 60 Goblins for tiny touches of brown on their black robes). Didn't touch the spider riders so far. Pictures will follow soon.

sigur

25-03-2007, 18:16

Another double-posty update for you. I haven't posted pictures in a while and since everybody likes colourful piccies, I did a few shots of some finished bases:

I also started painting the Spider Riders (about time - I've got 6 days to finish the whole job). One funny thing happened when I took a look at the Forest Goblins: I found some more miniatures I forgot to paint among them, namely two Dwarfs mission objective counters. I guess you can imagine my reaction ("NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!1111"). So there's a bit more to do than expected. Anyway, I only got one test of mediocre difficulty this week so expect some full army shots towards the end of the week.

Comments are appreciated as always.;)

schoolcormorant

25-03-2007, 22:01

oooh those are fantastic mate :) how did you paint the gold on the dwarfy trim?

I did the last two objective counters a few days ago; they don't look too good but they do the trick. I'm currently painting the Forest Goblins; the skin as well as the loinclothes and the wooden parts are done now. Three days to go and I'm getting lazy (probably connected to me reinstalling UFO: Enemy Unknown a few days ago:rolleyes: )

Anyway, expect a few WIP pictures tomorrow. I'm hoping to finish the shield emblems tonight, still it looks like I'll have to do much painting Friday night, handing in the comission on Saturday (I'll do the full army shots right before that).

Angel Robertson

29-03-2007, 08:41

They really look complete now they are based and they look great! The stock dwarfs in their boring positions came out really really nice!! Lookinf forward to the aamy shots!

AR

sigur

29-03-2007, 21:44

Upate - after a long time and a few days:

Well, here's another update including pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/spiderridersWIP1.jpg
The multi-legged horror that creeps my desk at the moment.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/spiderridersWIP21.jpg
Close up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/thewholelot.jpg
The finished miniatures so far.

As you can see, the Spider Riders still require much work so I announce a little painting marathon on Friday the 30th day of March. No time for blogging any more personal stuff now, gotta paint.;)

schoolcormorant

29-03-2007, 22:05

amazing :o

go on man, final push ;)

SC

McMullet

30-03-2007, 11:01

Wow, Sigur! Those spider riders are so colourful!

The end is in sight. Good luck with the painting marathon tonight...

armos

30-03-2007, 12:00

this has been one really entertaining log, can't wait to see the finished thing, beautiful work.

the yellow on the spider riders' feathers is particularly nice... how did you do that if you don't mind my asking?

Sureshot05

30-03-2007, 12:20

Come on Sigur, just one last dash for the line. I'll be sorry to see this log end, but can't wait to see your net project Sigur (though after today that may well be sleep!)

sigur

30-03-2007, 12:30

Thanks guys, I appreciate your comments.:)

@McMullet: They are colourful, aren't they? Just wait till the spiders get painted too. I just hope they don't come out too colourful in the end. Strong colours aren't that much of a problem though as long as you keep the palette to a few, basic colours (a wise man once told me ;) ).

@armos: Yellow feathers: Vallejo Model Colour White (I really like that color; it covers black very well) for the base colour, Sunburst yellow, a wash made of 50/50 mix of a very strong orange and snakebite leather, first highlights with Sunburst yellow, final highlights with a mix of Sunburst Yellow and Vallejo Model Colour Ice Yellow (think of it as a colour between bad moon yellow and bleached bone), finishing touches with pure Ice Yellow.

@Sureshot: Thanks, but do not despair, the next project has been on my desk for the past three months already...:eyebrows: There's always enough stuff to paint as you surely know from your own experience.

sigur

30-03-2007, 19:54

Last Day - Paintathon:

Local time: 20:42 - So it's Friday evening and Sigur starts his painting marathon. I've got Coke (with a slight lemon flavor..mmh) and Red Bull to get me through the night.

The recesses on the Spiders are based in white now so I can start applying the colours to them; I thought of using Yellow (as on the test miniature (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/spiderwipside.jpg)), Blue, Red and maybe green and purple too. This means I'll apply a base colour (Sunburst Yellow, Enchanted Blue/Ice Blue mix, Blood Red, Goblin Green or Warlock Purple) followed by highlights and a slightly darker wash.

I'll edit this posting every few hours to keep you updated about how I proceed.

23:00 - I've got the colour applied to all but one spiders now. While painting, I decided to go for the three colours I had chosen before plus one spider in green. I made a picture of the current state of the miniatures:

Very colourful, I know. The washes will tone down the colour on the spiders a bit. The skull patterns on 50% of the spiders came out really strong; stronger that I would like them to, so I'll have to put some extra washes onto them...

00:46: I'm proceeding slowly. The blue spiders are hightlighted now, as are the red ones (sans the skulls on them). The yellow ones got a wash and I did some touch ups which took quite some time. If I don't get faster, I'll have to lower the quality, I'm afraid.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/spiderridersWIP6.jpg
The highlights are a bit more defined in real-life. The photos don't show them too well on curved/bent surfaces. Well, I'll continue now...

schoolcormorant

31-03-2007, 00:34

sweet man!

keep going

SC

sigur

31-03-2007, 01:42

...and on he went. Thanks for your reply, I was already feeling bad about having to do another double-post because of the limit of images per post.;)

2:30 - The highlighting of the colours in the recesses is finally done on all spiders. It's no Golden Demon material indeed but I'll just declare it finished at this point. The next thing is painting the spiders' eyes which will be a simple thing for a change. After that, the legs and the forceps are on the list after that, then the black parts need another highlight and the spiders are done.

4:15 - The legs and forceps just need another red highlight and they're done. It's terrible how slow I am at painting. I think one of the main mistakes I did was mixing a colour instead of just using scab red and going for a slightly different tone I had planned.

I guess you start realizing why this darned project took me so long.:p

armos

31-03-2007, 03:40

don't second-guess yourself.. they look fantastic :)

sigur

31-03-2007, 05:42

6:30 (am :p ) - Wow, now I've been slacking. Incredible. I have no idea how I managed that but all I did since the last update was finishing the spiders (all they need are finishing highlights on the black parts) and dark brown bases for several leather/linen things on the gobbos....:rolleyes:

8:20 - I'm still at it. My tiredness and those stupid little details on the Goblins is a bad combination. I'm painting slowly and sloppily but I don't want to go to sleep because I'm dreading the situation of having not enough time left afterwards. And sleeping for four or five hours now won't help anything. I've got time till about 15:00 or 16:00 today. It's a shame that I can't invest more time into this unit but this is my fault entirely. I had more than one week to paint those little fellas, yet I have to turn this into such a last-minute thing. Anyway, I will return these miniatures today.

schoolcormorant

31-03-2007, 08:21

don't worry mate, they look fantastic.

again, keep going :)

SC

lilljonas

31-03-2007, 08:58

Having painted 1500pts of IG armour during a single night, I know your plight. :(

But they look great, just keep stabbing at them and you'll finish them!

Paulus

31-03-2007, 09:39

The Spider Riders are so bright & colourful Sigur, the look great.

Your nearly there now mate, keep it up! :)

sigur

31-03-2007, 09:52

10:40 - Well, good morning gentlemen.;) Thanks for your replies eventhough we all know that you can't comment much more than "you're doing great, go on (and stop spamming the fantasy logs section already)".

Apart from just posting a picture which looks exactly like the ones posted 6 hours ago, let's have a look at what is left to do:

.) Metallics on the Gobbos.
.) I need to do something about the ropes on the spears (maybe just a quick wash?).
.) a few little skulls/teeth/stingy things which should be bone-coloured according to the skull pass booklet.
.) Highlights on the Spiders' carapace parts
.) final touch-ups
.) Glueing everything together
.) full army shots

mousekiller

31-03-2007, 09:54

Wow, really nice work. A pat on the back for a night of excellent paintmenship. And, for giving me a few ideas on how to paint up those pesky spider riders.

Huw_Dawson

31-03-2007, 10:48

GO ON SIGUR!

You can do it, we know you can! :D

Only a few bits left, right? Then you can sleep. :p

- Huw

sigur

31-03-2007, 12:26

No more updates for you. The next thing you'll see is the full army shot.;)
(within the next one and a half hours)

jahorin

31-03-2007, 13:55

Very nice work, I really like the blue on those spiders, did you use Citadel Paints?

Can't wait for a full army shoot. Don't give up! you're almost there!

armos

31-03-2007, 14:33

can't wait :)

sigur

31-03-2007, 15:13

I indeed AM there now. But I'm sorry guys, but I'm afraid I'll have to keep you waiting for the pictures till in a few hours. I'm in quite a hurry now to catch the store while it's still open. Please don't lynch me.;)

The boyz

31-03-2007, 15:19

Nice work on those Giant Spiders, Sigur. They look very nice. Looking forward to seeing a photo of everything completely finished.

sigur

01-04-2007, 04:51

Okay, I'm kind of awake again now and I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures to my BfSP folder on photobucket.
Link for da pikshus (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Battle%20for%20Skull%20Pass/)

While cropping the photos doing the usual photoshop magic I noticed that I'm actually missing the little fellas by now.:p I put much time and efford into this project and personally I really like the results overall and so did the guy I painted it for. And be sure that I'll post a picture of the shop window once the miniatures I painted are in there.;)

You guys were a big help for me finishing this thing. Thanks for your feedback over the past months and, in some cases, thanks for the painting advice (two words: Brassy Brass).

And now on to something completely different: While I'd love to paint some 40k stuff, the next thing on my list is a mounted Nurgle Lord. Hope you'll stick around for that one too.;)

mousekiller

01-04-2007, 11:28

I am sorry that I did not get to this post until the last long night, but really nice work. Congratulations on completing such a great project, as I was very impressed.

McMullet

02-04-2007, 10:52

Well done Sigur! All those models look great. Congrats on getting them finished! :)

HolySanguinius

02-04-2007, 11:38

Wow sigur, I'm a long time lurker first time poster. These were an inspiration for my own dwarfs.

Cheers

Huw_Dawson

02-04-2007, 21:34

Yay! He's finished! :3

And once you get going with your nurgle marine, I'd suggest asking a mod to change this to "Sigur's awsome Warhammer stuff - BfSP and more!" or something similar. :D

- Huw

schoolcormorant

02-04-2007, 21:48

congrats matey :)

SC

Warwolt the skaven

02-04-2007, 23:06

Those spiderriders alone is worth 5. It looks like candy, and god damnit it is really sweet eye candy!

Btw Sigur, have you just bought some Snakebite Boarboyz off of me via ebay? If so I would love to see them painted.

sigur

03-04-2007, 16:44

Thanks again. I asked Cpt.Brown to rename this thread so I can use it for further Fantasy projects.

This means that, apart from that Nurgle Lord, I'll mainly be painting Dark Elves. Since I started again with WHFB, back in summer 2005, I collected about 3000 points of those fellas but various commissions kept me from painting them.:eyebrows: Now I plan to finish at least a core of 2000pts to be able to play proper games. Because of the scale of the project as well as a lack of time, the level of painting can't be that high so I'm trying to go for solid tabletop standard.

Pictures will follow soonishly but I just can't stop myself from painting at the moment.;)

edit:
@Chicken Pig: Now that's weird.;) Yes, it seems like I just bought those Boar Boys. Let's see when I get sick of Dark Elves (and when I can find some Boars), then I'll paint some Orks.

Chicken Pig

03-04-2007, 16:49

Well I saw the name Sigur, saw the adress as Austria and put two and two together. They are in the post tommorow.

Plus it has been 4 seconds since you last posted, where in the hell are those Dark Elves? :p

sigur

04-04-2007, 00:49

Here are a few shots of what I have, just to give you a rough idea of what I have to do:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/thebeginning1.jpg

Some WIP Cold One Knights and a Noble:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/cok1.jpg

20 Warriors with Full Command - Need some details, shields (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/WIP/shield1.jpg) and banner
20 Warriors with Full Command - just cut off the bits off the sprue, started cleaning
12 Warriors with Repeating Crossbows and musician - Need some details and shields
15 Corsairs - done, just need a banner
5 Dark Riders with RxB and musician - horses, faces and spears painted, robes need some work (not sure if I leave them black)
5 Dark Riders with RxB and musician - primed

As you can see, that's quite a heap of miniatures. I think I'll write a few army list of 2000pts and see which units I'll want to use most of the time and prioritise them according to that list.

The paint scheme basically is the classic druchii one: metals, purple, along with some golden details. I'll also make use of dark green and reds but the main colour will remain purple. On one hand, this gives me the rare opportunity to paint a purple army (and it's fun to paint purple) which you don't do too often. It's also the classic and typical druchii colour. On the other hand, I'll have a hard time to make my army a bit distinguished from all these other druchii forces. I even lack a theme right now. There are quite a few aspects in druchii background that are very interesting but I can't seem to decide which one I want to go for.

Anyway, these were some informations about the army I'm going to paint within the next months. I hope you'll have a look at this thread here and there and help me by commenting, critizising and therefore motivating.

Making the Druchii stand out by painting them differently isn't really necessary, in my opinion; your bright and colourful painting style (plus a few conversions here and there) is more than enough to make them distinctive. The red/green on the Cold Ones and Corsairs is very striking - it would be good to perhaps continue that theme through the army if possible, as a secondary colour scheme, otherwise the two units will stand out a bit.

cookiescrumble

04-04-2007, 11:09

Well, thats alot of models to paint.

Well done on getting BFSP done and to a high standard. I'll be watching this log, maybe it will inspire me to get something done. :D

mousekiller

04-04-2007, 11:22

Good luck mate. Color scheme seems rock solid so far.

sigur

04-04-2007, 13:41

Update - Day 2:

The RBTs and crewelfs are done:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/rbtdone.jpg

Next on my list is the converted Corsairs Captain (haven't even decided about his/her gender but I'll write some fluff for that one). I pondered painting the hair white, what do you think? (it's just a basecoat of SW Grey at the moment).

You can see a few more pictures in my photobucket's Dark Elves folder (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/).

Fideru

04-04-2007, 15:23

To me, the commander looks like a female, specially with that face. But wouldn't that be quite the scare for the opposition to find out he is really male?

(I like your clean style of painting and your dark elves look pretty good from what I can see.)

Boss_Salvage

04-04-2007, 16:00

Aye, my first thought was "Whoa, nice elf chick model! :D"

... followed by "Wait, I thought that one was a dude ... :("

Great face on him/her all the same, and the androgony is great for the DElves to be honest. Nice conversion and great painting in general.

- Salvage

Ravik

04-04-2007, 16:59

I like the elf of the cold one. There's something sinister about knowing it's a guy with a giant sword when it looks like a woman.

Good stuff, always nice to see more dark elves.

sigur

04-04-2007, 21:32

Alright, I'll keep the state of the Noble's gender as uncertain as it is now and did the hair white. I thought of some kind of outcast-background for him/her so the different colour of hair is quite fitting. Also did a few experiments with the Dark Riders' colour scheme; those guys are mainly cloaks with some hooded/masked heads on top. Keeping the cloaks black and making the heads and boots stand out looks weird so I'll either paint parts of the cloaks or the whole cloaks purple or something. Didn't decide yet and went on to finishing the first mage on foot. Currently, I'm doing some trial&error-testing with complex gemstones on the staff, let's see how it looks in the end.

As the RBT crewelfs have shown, highlighting the purple cloth with a mix of white and liche purple looks much better and sinister than highlighting with a mix of Liche Purple and Warlock Purple so I'll keep that for the rest of the army too. I'll post some more pictures tomorrow (hopefully with some new stuff).

Khrangar

04-04-2007, 21:41

I think the model itself is male, but it looks ambiguous to me. Maybe a Dark Elf transvestite, it could happen. Nice models so far, I especially like the BT crew.

Khrangar

Crazy Harborc

05-04-2007, 03:24

sigur......Can I adopt you AND your minies:D :angel: A nice BIG room next to a great 5 by 10 (total area) foot gaming table. Always beer in the basement's **** too.

mousekiller

05-04-2007, 03:57

Looking good.... elves are effeminate anyway so I would say the gender doesn't really matter as you can't really tell anyway...:D

A cool miniature. When I first saw this one in WD (it was released the same month as the Eldar Falcon IIRC), I thought that she looks exactly how you'd imagine the evil stepmother in any fairytale and still I think that this is what she looks like so I tried to give her some makeup and all (first attempt at proper lipstick and eyeshadow. As I've stated in a previous post, I attempted to turn the skull-thing on her staff into something that looks like made of gemstone. As you see, the success is limited but it looks okay. Not sure if glossy varnish would make it look better. It's a nice miniature and very tall and impressive, yet I'd like to see some more DE characters miniatures, GW!

If you look sharply, you can see that some parts of the robes/cloaks are dark purple rather than black. I did that after I realized that black robes + purple gloves/boots and green scarves/face masks makes the miniatures look incredibly weird, especially around the knee region where the emerald green pants and the overknee-boots meet so I thought of going for something more colourful for the robes. I think I'll have to do a bit of research and see how other people solved the problem of Dark Riders are annoying to highlight and look very unspectacular on the battlefield when painted black. Should I paint all the robes purple, leave them black or just paint the bit I based dark purple now (it's quite neat as those parts look like sashs a bit) in purple and leave the rest in black? Any ideas?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but these days, all my pictures seem to come out too dark. Maybe it's because of the generally darker look of DE compared to BfSP minis.

Anyway, that's it for this update.

@Khrangar: Yup, the miniature itself is male, otherwise the lads of mini designers would have made perfectly clear that he's female in their world-famous subtility.

Thanks for the comments.:)
Yeah, horses, just like most dogs, just have very dark irises. Still, I went for quite human-looking eyes because those good old elven steeds just look so un-horseish. They look like horses with an attitude. Maybe I'll change the look of the eyes though. I'm also not quite happy with how the saddles and all that look on the Dark Steeds. They are just too dark.

Anyway, next things on my list:
.) finish the Sorceress
.) finish the Noble
.) Find a way of how to paint Dark Riders

I also have an idea of how to spice up the Shades a bit so I might like the unit a bit more (currently, I'm not a great fan of those and don't use them often so I have to make them a bit more lovable ;) ).

Huw_Dawson

05-04-2007, 19:34

Damn you Sigur! "Tabletop standard", and you STILL can paint better than I can! *cries* Those dark horses look really evil for some reason... it's probably the eyes. ;)

Oh well, as long as I can get some painting practice in with BFSP when I eventually get it, I might be able to get to a decent standard eventually. :p

Carry on Sigur!
- Huw

PS: The noble's a guy... Nobody but a stupidly vain guy would feel to wear lipstick AND have a massive ornate sword. It's amazing how much character you can give something as simple as a dude with a sword on a giant green snappy thing.

Saulot

09-04-2007, 10:10

awesome, awsome, awesome!

Your paintjobs are always so neat and crisp! Great job!

About the Dark Riders, I kept the robes on mine black with a few highlights at the edges. I'm using a red and gold color scheme and the riders look too bright if I paint the robes any differently. Hope that helps. :)

sigur

09-04-2007, 14:57

Update - Day 8:

Meh. Just meh. I got to the point I always arrive a week before being able to paint my own minis again: Lack of motivation. I hardly ever really play Warhammer and the mass of miniatures to paint is quite overwelming. I slapped together a 2000pts list for DE, realizing that it's uninspired and looks like an army you would see for playtesting or tutorials or something. I also realized that the RxB warriors I painted look pretty much like poo (metals are too bright and look rushed, the purple parts are way too blueish and dark and the rest is unpainted) and even worse: My hands seem to have agreed on continuing this style.

Within the last few days, I finished Sorceress#1, 12 shields for the RxB warriors, did some details on the queer Noble and that's it. I also received some Ork Boar Boys which were lying around on my desk (along with the gorgeous close combat weapons and light weapons sprues) and, making it hard for me to focus on WHFB so I decided to assemble these fellas. Just don't tell any of the mods, otherwise they'll send this thread from the cozy, familiar Fantasy Project Logs to the anonymity of General Painting Logs.

Pictures will follow shortly. I know, I said that a few times before and they did not "follow shortly" but this time I definitly will post them tonight.

The current state of the RxB Warriors:
1 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/rxb1.jpg)
2 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/rxb2.jpg)

....and a picture of the Noble again:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/corsairnoblebackrune1.jpg
I'm thinking of turning him/her into a part-time Highborn though and adding a shield to his/her back.

Well, that's it.

@Saulot: I had a look at your druchii painting log. Very nice, non-conventional colourscheme. The bronze-y metallics go very well with the red.

Crazy Harborc

10-04-2007, 01:59

Is, is....:eek: she standing down on a dock making a signal to a sailor or three?? I've, I've seen that crook of a finger before....long, long ago that is:D

Brakru Silverhammer

10-04-2007, 02:29

It's been said but I'll say it again...awesome job!

I espesially like the dark elves.

Saulot

16-04-2007, 03:01

Update - Day 8:
@Saulot: I had a look at your druchii painting log. Very nice, non-conventional colourscheme. The bronze-y metallics go very well with the red.

Thanks! :D :D

I recently added a few more finished pictures to my log. As well as a short introduction of the rest of my army (and "official list"). [/shameless plug] :p

Any new pics of your Elves? Looking forward to your updates! :)

sigur

21-04-2007, 12:43

Update - Day 20:
Wow, have this been almost two weeks already? Well, I haven't painted much really. Started painting the chariot before finishing Sorceress on Foot #2. I want to give her a nifty tatoo but I'm not sure on the design yet. The sword is also a bit of a problem. I thought of going for glowy green, but how do you make a hand weapon look "magical"? I actually wanted to have some kind of crystalline pattern to it but I might go with the usual "power sword"-look anyway just because it saves time. The motivation level isn't too high because I haven't played in quite some time and I assume I won't do so too soon.

mousekiller

21-04-2007, 20:58

I just realized that you and I have a lot in common Sigur... we both love the game of warhammer but neither of us ever gets to play it. Matter of fact, the last game I played was back in 1996. Oh well, it is the dream of playing that keeps us painting. Use it as motivation, and to keep you in check when you find yourself rushing a piece because you feel that you have to get it done in time for a game or whatever.

That sorceress is really nice. My favorite part is probably the red skull, as it came out perfectly. I really like your style of highlighting.

Great work, and I can't wait to see the rank and file units.

sigur

23-04-2007, 23:27

Thanks for your reply, Mousekiller. Well, my situation isn't quite as dire as yours but I know what it's like not playing in years. From my experience, deadlines are a huge motivator, as well as playing. Not playing/not having any deadlines makes you get off the path of "what I should get done". Some day you wake up and see all those unpainted miniatures you never even played with and probably never will (like my Squats project, Valhallans, ...). This is just bad medicine for the painting motivation. What's also bad for said motivation are computer games. I think I wrote about this problem before. After playing a bit on a friend's computer, I even reinstalled Counterstrike. Holy Emperor, I suck at this game. People half as old as me totally devastate me. Don't you hate it when people who feel superior to the myspace crowds turn their painting logs into blogs about their boring existance? Well, I do so let's go on to the pictures.

Sorry, no rank and file pictures this time, just some stuff I did in the past week(s):

Let's start with Dark Elves, since that it's what it is/should be all about:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/sorceress2wip1.jpg
Don't mind the sword, it looks pretty bad at the moment. I've been experimenting a bit. I really like this miniature, eventhough the detail isn't too great (plastic miniature from the 90ies). I'm planning to add some nifty tatoo because her belly to make the whole mini look a bit more detailed and the quite large, bright surface just asks for something to paint on. Actually, I thought of something similar to Snake Plissken's snake tatoo (cheesy, but rad), just with DE rune stuff starting at her belly and going down to her exposed thigh.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariotwip2.jpg
The first chariot (I might have to get another one. Two for one Special slot plus the toughness of this model more or less requires me to do so), just to let you know what I'm going for with this miniature. Not sure about the brown/wooden wheels. Do you they it should be purple too?

Another shot of the chariot. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariotwip1.jpg)

A few days ago, I re-read a bit about Imperial Assassins so I'm trying to paint up an Eversor and two Death Cult Assassins for my Witch Hunters army, so I did this (mainly today):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Witchhunters/eversorwip1.jpg
This psycho will look quite traditional. Don't mind the highlights on the black suit; I'll have to redo those a bit. The lense on the scope is my first experiment with painting gem-like stuff on a flat surface and therefor make it look curved.

Have I already reported that I've assembled eight boar boys? I think it did. Anyway, I've been stripping some more stuff, namely IG tanks metal parts (Demolisher, Hellhound) some Squats, Orks and some more 5th edition Dark Elves Stuff. I'm not sure which of those I should post so I'll just give you links. Make sure you have a look, those are quite interesting miniatures:

DE General (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/lordevil1.jpg) who came with a 5th edition Pegasus (which is superior to the current one, I think). This guy is a bit tiny, but he makes up for that by looking evil(x2).
A 5th edition DE Corsair (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/corsair1.jpg). Those guys looked funny. Generally, I'm in favor for old miniatures, but for these guys, I have to admit that the current ones look much better. In fact, the whole current DE range is superb (they should have kept the classic DE iconography with this stylised skull though). GWish, yet superstylish. Anyway, I got the miniature for free and he stands out quite a bit so ...yay!
Squat (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Squats/squatpointyhat1.jpg)...something. Hearthguard I assume. People like seeing Squats so here we go. He also has got a big, pointy hat which is a feature that makes miniatures instantly superior, don't you agree?

Well, that's the news and my duty is done by bumping my Painting Log. I really should go to bed now and so should you. Good night and good luck.

schoolcormorant

23-04-2007, 23:42

the purple on that 'girl?'s loincloth thing is absolutely amazing....blended and whatnot. :D

SC

Erestor

24-04-2007, 10:35

Nice work powering on here Sigur. Well done.

Boss_Salvage

24-04-2007, 15:42

The eversor looks aces, and are his DCA friends going to be the standard (and very nice) GW ladies? The sash on the shman is really something, I have to agree with SC. Keep up the awesome work!

- Salvage

sigur

24-04-2007, 19:01

Yes, I'm using the standard GW Death Cultists miniatures. Thanks for the replies so far.;)

Luthien

28-04-2007, 21:54

sigur i ust protest, your turning one of the best warhammer elf models into a queer, i mean c'mon :rolleyes:

sigur

30-04-2007, 02:56

sigur i ust protest, your turning one of the best warhammer elf models into a queer, i mean c'mon :rolleyes:

Hehe, this one made me snicker. Let's be glad that this isn't a well-frequented thread; if you posted this in any of the "General" forums, the replies would be pretty weird. Thanks for your opinion though.

Anyway, a little be of an update here just because it's sunday. Last night, I did a bit of painting on the Sorceress again and inked/highlighted the metallics on the chariot. The last couple of hours, I've been working on the RxB warriors, attached the shields and painted some details so the unit is closing in to competion but they are looking sub-par. Sorry about starting whining again, but painting my own miniatures is getting harder and harder since I really lack the motivation to do so. It just seems so senseless.:p

Anyway, the first and only local gaming store wants to expand from trading card games to tabletop gaming and needs one or two armies for promo games which I got offered to paint (Empire and/or mortal Chaos). So maybe a new comission is on the horizon.

rkunisch

01-05-2007, 16:34

Hi, you asked for picture of my Rakarth: I posted the finished one on the Painting Support Group. Here are the two WIP shots:

Yesterday, I attached the shields to the Repeating Crossbow Warriors and did the last important details so you could say that this is my second finished unit (apart from the Corsairs):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/rxb3.jpg

I was pretty happy to see that I could put all the shields for the front rank in front of the miniatures (a thing I did not really consider when assembling these guys). If I would have had to glue them to their backs, it would have been impossible to rank the miniatures up properly. Of course they could look better but it's a rank-and-file unit and I just want to get something done.

The second sorceress on foot is also about finished (okay, it might be a bit early to say that). I still have to do something about the sword which looks kind of messy at this point. The hair also needs highlighting, as well as the cloak which might receive some freehand pattern (considering how bad I am at freehands, I might delay that one though). I applied some ink to the flesh parts because someone mentioned that it looked too flat as it was. It really looks better now, maybe I should add some more highlights too.

I'm not quite sure if I should add some gold too. Some people keep on reminding me to "limit the palette". The crew and the bitz that get stuck to the sides of the chariot are still just primed by the way.

That's it for today, comments and critique will be very welcome. A few more pictures of these miniatures can be found in my Dark Elves folder (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/) on photobucket.

edit: thanks for the pictures, rkunisch. I'm eager to see some more, especially the painted Rakarth.

McMullet

01-05-2007, 16:48

Some people keep on reminding me to "limit the palette".
Nah. That's just not Sigur Style™. ;)

I think what makes your models stand out (besides the obvious technical proficiency you demonstrate) is that they are always bright and colourful; whilst I prefer to use muted, limited palettes myself, your way of painting obviously works well for you.

I think a little gold would work well on the chariot; at the moment you have red, green and purple, and adding a warmer colour would help to balance the overall scheme out - as well as tying in with the rest of your army, which features gold trim here and there.

Excellent work on the crossbows and sorceress, though you are right about the sword - it looks a tad messy. I like the green though, and if you neaten it up a bit I think it'll be grand.

Looking forward to the next update!

rkunisch

01-05-2007, 16:52

edit: thanks for the pictures, rkunisch. I'm eager to see some more, especially the painted Rakarth.

Hi, you asked for picture of my Rakarth: I posted the finished one on the Painting Support Group. Here are the two WIP shots:
Ahem. :o

I always found it is easier for those who actually read posts and not only look at the pictures. :p

Have fun,

Rolf.

sigur

01-05-2007, 17:17

You expect me to actually read a posting which has pictures of a Dragon?;)

Just kidding, my fault. So I had a look at Rakarth and he looks just cool with his helmet and the sword. Good job, it kind of motivates me to paint my own Rakarth soon.

Arhalien

01-05-2007, 17:19

Lovely Dark Elves Sigur; Smoothly painted and well highlighted :)

And E-gads! Do I spy a good Dark Elf sorceress model? :eek: ;)

Bluesabre

01-05-2007, 17:37

Good idea with the crossbow shields.
I have a Rakarth to be redone at some stage, just have to do something about the weak ankle on the dragon that keeps bending :(
Thats an old plastic sorceress isnt it?: edit disregard this last one, just read back a page!!!

All looking good so far, keep up the good work.

tancrede

01-05-2007, 18:19

nice minis, man. but i think you should have done your dark elves with a more pale skin...

Paulus

01-05-2007, 20:26

First time I've had a proper look at your Dark Elves Sigur, looking good! :D

Luthien

03-05-2007, 18:07

i'm liking those crossbow elves :D

Saulot

04-05-2007, 02:56

Excellent as always sigur!

RxB Warriors looks so shiny and "elite". One question, have you considered snipping off the tips of the shields so that it looks like they were actually driven to the ground?

Also love the Sorceress. schoolcormorant was right to point out her loincloth. Mad blending skills! And oh, I find this model so amusing-- Evil Chubby She-Elves FTW! :p

Keep up the great job!

sigur

07-05-2007, 22:29

Thanks for your replies guys.

@Bluesabre: I also have a slightly loose joint on my Rakarth's dragon (it's the neck-torso-connection to be precise). The upper half of the head also snapped off. Ah well, I still have some more stuff to do before I can think of starting with this guy.

@tancrede: Thanks, I appreciate your comment since I know from whom it's coming.;) I know what you mean. As mentioned before, I might add some brighter highlights later at some point. To be honest, I tried to go for Graveyard earth as base colour for some of my DE miniatures instead of Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh mix as I did on the Sorceress and the Warriors with crossbows to make it look less lively. With the next update, I'll also put up some pictures of the Corsairs I did with this alternative skin colour.

@Saulot: Well, they are considered an "Elite"-army, aren't they?;) And I believe that elves always should look quite flashy and pretty. The motto is: We most probably will lose this battle but we'll look flash while doing so.

At some point, I considered snipping the lower tips off the shields. In fact, I glued on the shields on the second rank minis and just held the shields to the front rank miniatures to see if I could fit the shields under each warrior's arms. It worked so I was so enthusiastic about it that I glued them right on.:rolleyes:

When doing the bases, I'll heighthen the ground around the lower tips of the shields and add patches of static grass (I probably will go for a quite run-of-the-mill earth-and-static-grass-theme for the bases) around them to look like they are rammed into the ground a bit more.

Within the past week(-end), I did close to nothing. Having much stuff to paint kind of paralyzed me, apart from that I have no pressure at all. I started working out a plan of what to do the next time. Also, some annoying exams are coming up so I should study which usually leads to a bigger painting output.:rolleyes:

I slapped together a balanced list of about 1500pts (about 1440pts in fact) of stuff I most probably will include in every list and mostly stuff I have painted so far:

Noble (mounted) [~140] - WIP, you know him/her and I assume he/she is done to about 70%
Sorceress, lvl2 [~180] - done
Sorceress, lvl1 [~140] - WIP, that's the plastic one so the Sword needs to be reworked and some detail's still to be done. About 75% done

20 Warriors (FC, shields) [178] - WIP, need shields, banner and details
12 RxB Warriors (shields, musician) [149] - done
5 DR (RxB, musician) [127] - still veryWIP, the horses are done to a quite low level (to be seen a few pages back), the riders are still more or less unpainted. I also need to find those RxB bits again.

1 CoC (spears) [97] - WIP right now. The Cold Ones and crew is still unpainted
5 CoK [145] - done to a tabletop-level I guess. Nothing special, but the colours are where they belong. They still need shields though and I'd love to give those guys backbanners too
6 Shades [84] - Primed and partly the Crossbow parts came off

2 RBT [200] - done

ss_cherubael

08-05-2007, 13:59

Good looking Dark Elves there Sigur, im liking the colour scheme alot. The two Sorceresses are very nice indeed its a pity about how old the minis are as they are not really up to the moulding standards of today but you have made them look bloody good.
Hopefully this log will motivate me to finish my Druchii for the Nemisis crown campaign, keep up the good work mate. For the witch king!

sigur

30-05-2007, 22:50

Shortly before dropping to page#4, I'm posting to anounce that I'm back at the painting table. Within the past two days, I almost finished the Cold Ones Chariot. All it still needs is some scenery on the base and I finally want to get into GSing banners since I want my army to display quite a few of those.

The next thing to do on my list is finally finishing a unit of 20 Warriors.

mrtn

31-05-2007, 18:33

Nice to hear that! :)

sigur

03-06-2007, 23:59

Tiny update:

....without any pictures because I just can't find my digicam. Has anyone of you guys taken it?:p

I made my first GS banner last night and it seems like it turned out okay (apart from a quite ugly wrinkle that happened when I flattened the GS blob between two sheets of plastic. Today, I put the banner onto the bannerpole which was quite a fiddly job to do.

The work on the block of Warriors is progressing too; I just finished their shields.

So that's an army list of the units I have (as good as) finished so far:

Noble on Cold One
Sorceress on Foot
Sorceress on Foot

20 Warriors with spears, shields and full command
16 Corsairs with full command
12 Warriors with Repeating Crossbows, shields and musician

Cold One Chariot
5 Cold one Knights

Reaper Bolt Thrower
Reaper Bolt Thrower

Look, that's a whole army of 1200-1500pts, and quite balanced too!:cool: Making up lists like that just motivate me; I'm sure you're doing similar stuff.

Anyway, I promise to post some pictures as soon as I found that darned camera.

sigur

05-06-2007, 22:39

Look, I found the digicam! So, as promised, quite a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

First off, the quasi-finished chariot. The thing that holds the extra spears should cover the gribbly part of the chariot's side in the end.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariot1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariot2.jpg
(The remains of yellow stuff I used to hold the girl with the whip in place will be removed of course.)

A close-up of the banner I GS'ed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariotbanner2.jpg

The bad thing is that I painted the banner pole before attaching the banner itself so, as you can see, I tried to prime it without getting the pole (and especially the top of it) blackened too. It didn't work too well.

As you can see, I used a different approach on the skin of these guys. I hardly used any of the classic flesh colours and used different shades of brown up to bleached bone instead. How do you like it?

A sample of the Warriors as they look now. The unit consists of 20 miniatures. All I need to get finished are some belts and single gems. I might also highlight the metal parts a bit more.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/warriorssample1.jpg

Here's a picture of my black (yeah, it's very black at the moment, ha-ha) Pegasus with a little bit of barding I sculped about a year ago. I think I haven't shown you pictures of it yet. I have to keep myself from painting it before attaching it to a proper 40mm square base.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/pegasus1.jpg

In my photobucket folder, you can also find:
.) A sample pic of the shields (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/shieldssample1.jpg) (they look the same as on the unit of Crossbow Elves; purple with serpent icon).
.) some more pictures of the crewmen (1 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/crewman2.jpg) and 2 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/crewman4.jpg)), the Pegasus (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/pegasus2.jpg), the other side of the banner (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/chariotbanner1.jpg). GS-sculpted stuff always seems to have a "chocolate side" and ....another one.
.) Sketches (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/bannerdesignsketches1.jpg) of the banner design I have in mind for the chariot.

Note to self: Get a less textured white piece of cloth for my photographing background. Macro-mode loves textured surfaces.

I switched from Photoshop 6.0 to PhotoFiltre for picture processing and it takes a bit till I figure out how to make the pictures less dim. I hope you like the pictures anyway.

The next steps are:
.) finish the Warriors (and find that one Warrior's head again!) by painting the belts and attaching the shields. This unit is more or less the core of my army. They are in all of my lists because I just like blocks of infantry and for their price, I find DE warriors are a great unit.
.) paint the chariot's banner and assemble the chariot.
.) paint five Cold One Knights that are currently painted to table-top level (which means that the colours are in place). While making the sketches for the chariot's banner, I also thought of back-banners for the Cold One Knights. I want to give them as much individuality as the models allow without having to convert them because I imagine those Knight-Nobles to be quite individualistic beings who aren't as much of a unit as others. Still, they should look like one force on the battlefield. Let's see how that turns out.

Well, that's the plan for the next few weeks, I'll try to proceed well and deliver you pictures now and then. As always, comments and critique are very welcome. See ya, guys!

schoolcormorant

06-06-2007, 01:32

oah, wow!!!!

those are looking perfect Sigur mate, i love the skin tones, how do you do them?

as ever though buddy, awesome! :D

SC

Crazy Harborc

06-06-2007, 02:08

The minies look very good sir!! I would leave the extra weapons and the quiver/holder off the chariot. They look like hand grabbers and chariot tipper-overs.:eek:

Paulo Cavalcanti

06-06-2007, 04:59

Hi Sigur..

That's great job you're doing here!! I realy liked that way you are painting the Dark elves.

I just have one advice: To clear the shadows under the first Sorceres chin, she's looking a little bit "neckless" because of the strong shading!!

Despite that... your army is turning out great.

Keep on the good work!!

Cheers, : D

sigur

06-06-2007, 09:43

Thanks for the replies so far guys!

@schoolcormorant: For the skin tones, I used Vallejo chocolate brown as base (picked it up once because I had run out of Scorched Brown); Think scorched brown but a bit more natural. After that, I layered up from there using Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki, a bit of Elf Flesh, bleached bone and skull white. No inks were used, but the paint was watered down of course.

As I have a whole army to paint, I'm more and more moving towards stronger highlights and stronger shading as my previous miniatures used to turn out looking a bit flat and especially elves with their sharp facial features require a bit more definition in their faces.

@Crazy Harborc: While I have no idea what a "tipper-over" could be, I think I'll keep the additional stuff since it makes the chariot look bulkier, spikier and heavier in general. But maybe I'll change my mind as soon as I found out what "tipper-over" means though.;)

@Paulo Cavalcanti: Thanks for the advice, I assume you're talking about the metal sorceress with the skull staff. Welcome to Warseer by the way. Did you paint that High Elf in your avatar picture? If so, would you mind posting a link to your pictures?

Cheers!

mrtn

06-06-2007, 10:16

Nice painting, I like the new skin tone. :)

McMullet

06-06-2007, 11:45

Excellent work all round, I'd like to be more constructive but I can't see anyhting wrong! The no fleshtone flesh looks excellent.

For the banner, I like the sketch at the top right. It neatly divides the banner into 3 strips (sea, sea monster thing, background) which will look balanced.

Looking forward to the next update!

Paulo Cavalcanti

06-06-2007, 16:51

Hi sigur..

Thanks for the welcome... i've been snifing around for some time, now i finaly posted something!! :)

Yes, i was talking about the Sorceress with the skull staff, witch is great by the way. Can you tell us how did you achieved that scheme of red in the staff??

About the HE avatar, it's one of mine minis. I'll be posting my Wip army here soon. ;)

Cheers!!

Harry

06-06-2007, 18:45

Great thread Sigur.
Lovely, crisp, clean painting.
The Delfs above are the best I have seen.
Makes me want to go and paint some.

(@Paulo. I'll be keeping an eye out for your thread also).

mousekiller

06-06-2007, 20:20

Those look spectacular mate... that chariot is awesome. Only advice I would give is to bring the green up another level, as it seems a bit underdone compared to the rest of the model (of course, it may just be the picture washing out the highlights also).

Love the conversion.. what type of lord are you going to mount?

Arhalien

06-06-2007, 20:37

Fantastic stuff Sigur :D Lovely, lovely painting :)

Zodiac

06-06-2007, 21:20

Sigur! Such a lovely chariot crew. That skin tone is brilliant! Very dark elf, but very real and clean at the same time. Especially the face is amazing. Very nice.. I would never have the patience to work so much on one face of a chariot crew.. But that miniature is sexy!

Your army is going to look great. Keep it up!

Crazy Harborc

07-06-2007, 03:07

"Tipper over"..........I was (trying) to use humor to point out that those three "spears" in their quiver hanging on the side of a chariot would likely over balance it and turn (tip) it over when the chairot turned into the side it was hanging on.

Saulot

07-06-2007, 17:12

Druchii Flesh looks great sigur! They look like hardened soldiers to me! Btw, are you open to "girly-fying" the female crew some more? I barely noticed that she was a she until i checked her... um... "chesticular" area.

Nice job on using an old Pegasus model, too! I don't think I've seen one painted in recent moons. It'd be interesting to see how you can bring it up-to-date.

Keep up the excellent work!

squiggoth

08-06-2007, 09:48

Looking good Sigur, I love the skintones on those elves.
Nice conversion on the old Pegasus as well, it improves him a lot. Can't wait to see how he'll turn out. :)

sigur

12-06-2007, 23:18

@Crazy Harborc: The humorous touch of your post bounced off my armour of ignorance without leaving a scratch I'm afraid. Sorry.;) I get your point and actually considered ataching the spears thingy to a noble's mount instead. It might give the whole thing a nice, personal touch. Any other opinions on this?

@Saulot: Thanks. Not sure if I'll girly-fy the female crewmember even more though. I guess, her ...chesticles, as you put it, (:p ) speak for themselves and I prefer to keep make-up to Nobles/More elite troops. Let's see how this Dark Pegasus will turn out. I'm still a bit confused about the choice of colour for my monsters so if anyone can give me some suggestions, I'll gladfully consider them.

As some of you might seen already, those are the sketches I did so far. Which one do you like, the one in the upper right or the one in the lower right? I got a suggestion on MSN to go for the upper one and it makes sense, considering the quite narrow banner but I'd like to have some more opinions on that. If you have totally different suggestions, just let me know.:)

Cheers!

Crazy Harborc

13-06-2007, 01:30

Well, the upper one just might work out better if it being narrower is needed for a good fit. Say how about a mermaid....a healthy one with an evil smile?

I would cut and drill on that spear holder. After drilling holes to replace the spears (with much lighter weight wire). Softer wire can have spear heads flattened and trimed into shape;)

MacDeath

13-06-2007, 06:51

Wow! Very nice! I'm glad I clicked on the link and waited (dial-up :[ ) for the pix to download.

OK, for the banners - I like the long (horizontal) pointy ones. The bottom one is nice. Maybe have a double pointed flag? If you haven't already, try using thick aluminum like the kind used for toothpaste tubes. You can make it wavy and look realistically wind-blown.

Thumbs up.

CMDante

13-06-2007, 11:17

Great job with the DE, the warriors and chariot look great. My only criticism would be that the purple, green and red don't really go too well on the chariot and it looks a little gaudy but its well executed.

Looking forward to more.

Cheers,

Dante

sigur

22-06-2007, 00:01

Hey, that's me again kids!

Thanks for your suggestions and comments. I actually did fiddle around with a mermaid-like (more like Medusa actually, but you made me think of using this motif) banner design and decided that it would fit the best on a unit of Witch Elves (which I still don't even possess at this point).

About using aluminium toothpaste tubes: I considered all kinds of techniques to make those banners, including aluminium and PVA-soaked paper (the latter just failed and wouldn't give me the results I'd wanted so I went on to cutting up a coke-can but found it quite a pain to bend it into shape), and came to the conclusion that I should make them of Green Stuff because I need to practice and get familiar with this mysterious mass.

@CMDante: I get your point but I like my miniatures colourful and bright actually (bright doesn't go too well with DE but you get my point), especially WHFB ones. For me, colourful miniatures and flags/banners are essential to WHFB units and what makes them look good on the tabletop. That's also why I want to replace the puny, sculpted banners you get with the DE miniatures (the only thing I have to critisize about the DE range), especially the metals, with bigger banners.

At the moment, I'm trying (close to) my best (today's thought: do you think you ever give your best at something, even if you'd want to?) at making a GS banner for the Corsairs...

Warseer guy: "Hold on. What is this, a diary? PIXPLZ!"

Alright, alright, I'll go and take some shots of stuff.

...

First off, a picture of the corsairs standard bearer:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/corsairbanner1.jpg

The horizontal part of the banner pole looks so bent because it snapped some months ago and I had to repair it. Please compare to the puniness of the original banner (http://de.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.de?do=Individual&code=9947021203502&orignav=13).

My first attempt failed (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/failure.jpg) because the banner was too thick and I didn't realized until it was too hard to make it any thinner.

Thinner, and already "shaped". Stressing the word "sculpted" for this thing seemed blasphemous to me. Somehow I seem to have problems at getting the surfaces to be totally smooth. If any of the resident GSers has any advice for me, please let me know.

Lastly, another one from sigur's sketchbook:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/Lexandro/Dark%20Elves/bannersketches.jpg

Medusa-banner and some ideas about the banner design for the corsairs. By now, you can tell that I like the idea of splashing water since I saw it on CMON (http://www.coolminiornot.com/107404).

That's it for now; I really need to practice using GS. Cheers guys!

Harry

22-06-2007, 09:30

The standard bearer is a beauty.

I would be very tempted to put a banner on each side of that pole.Two thinner ones instead of one wide one.
If you sculpting out of green stuff you could make it blowing in the breeze so it went behind the mini rather than hiding him.

Bonus...you get to do two designs. :D

Arhalien

22-06-2007, 09:40

Very nicely painted mini. Sigur :D That looks fantastic :)

Huw_Dawson

22-06-2007, 11:44

Sigur, I would recommend newspaper glued together with cheap paper glue (UHU tubes or similar) stuck together around the banner, then painted a base of black or white. It's what I did with my Space Marines and the result is something quick, cheap and effective. GS lacks the realistic thinness IMHO.

And stop posting yer Dark Elves! Harry will get cross at you. :p If memory serves their suppost to be for the Tale of a Horde. :p
- Huw

sigur

22-06-2007, 12:42

@Harry: Thanks for your input. Not sure if I want to go for two-parts banners at all; as mentioned above, I'm quite a fan of BIG BANNERS.

@Huw_Dawson: Never I would dare to touch a brush before the end of the month.;) This guy was painted several ago; probably about a year even. I just wanted to post a picture of him because I haven't before.

Newspaper, eh? Doesn't sound too bad as long as it's durable enough to paint properly. I can't imagine that you can shape this stuff too well (at least it won't stay in shape).

Last night, after updating, I noticed that the banner is too long which could almost drive me into going for Harry's suggestion of doing a two-parts banner. But it looks more like sigur is making a miniature standing on a rock.:rolleyes:

edit: After a phase of deep thinking and cursing, I came to the conclusion that GS is stupid and so is converting so I decided to do the finishing touches on the ...slightly more curvaceous Sorceress (the plastic one).